update: anti-vax employee is pressuring a coworker not to vaccinate her baby

by Alison Green on February 17, 2025

Remember the letter-writer whose anti-vax employee was pressuring a coworker not to vaccinate her baby? Here’s the update.

I really appreciated your advice and several of the thoughts from the commenters as well.

I have weekly one-on-ones with each member of my team, so after reading your response, I used that next meeting with Cordelia as an opportunity to step in, after taking care of our usual business.

I used the framing about how if the roles were reversed, if Dawn didn’t want to vaccinate and someone was pressuring her to, I would need to shut that conversation down, because Dawn deserves to be able to come to work and not be questioned or hassled about any or all of her medical decisions … just like you, Cordelia. I would never let anyone pressure you or give you a hard time about not getting vaccinated, and now I need you to give your coworker that same respect.

She teared up and said, “I just wish someone would have told me not to give my little boy all of those poisonous shots; he would still be alive now,” and then started sobbing. It was horrible.

I gave her some tissues and a little bit of time. After a reasonable amount of time, I told her that I understood that Dawn’s pregnancy might have brought up a lot of really hard and painful memories for her, and that I was ready to support her in any way that was reasonable, but that did not and could not include pressuring Dawn in any way. She nodded and said that she understood.

At this point, there were less than 30 minutes left in the workday, and I asked if she wanted to go ahead and leave a little bit early. She agreed, got her coat, and left work.

I stayed at my desk for a few more minutes to steady myself. (I am not someone who typically makes other people cry, and even though I knew I was doing the right thing, it was still deeply unpleasant.) Once I felt like myself again, I went to Dawn’s desk to check in with her.

After asking if she was okay, I said that I’m sure she had already noticed that pregnant women often get a lot of unsolicited advice and information, and that if she was ever feeling pressured or harassed by a coworker to please let me know, because that wasn’t acceptable at work. She said, “Oh, that’s why Cordelia was upset? Thanks for talking to her. I really appreciate it.” I told her I was happy to do it, that it was my job, and that I was sorry it had taken me so long to notice and put a stop to it originally, but that if there were any further issues, please let me know right away. We had our regularly scheduled one-on-one two days later, and I reiterated this point, but she said everything was good.

Cordelia has seemed more or less like her usual gregarious self since them. The three of them have continued to have lunch together most days and as far as I can tell without truly egregious eavesdropping haven’t been talking about anything more serious than the weather (very cold), Taylor Swift (very talented), and Willow’s new haircut (very cute).

Dawn is just a few weeks away from going on her maternity leave, and is as happy, anxious, excited, and exhausted as you might expect. As far as I can tell, this particular issue is entirely resolved.

Also? Thank goodness for this blog! I am someone who ended up in this role because I was very good at doing the work that Cordelia, Willow, and Dawn are doing, so I guess my bosses figured that I would be naturally good at supervising people doing that same work. But I don’t have any previous experience with managing people, and even with just three people, it is really HARD; it doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I’m very thankful to have this collection of good advice to read, and when push really came to shove, to be able to ask my specific question. Thanks again!

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  1. learnedthehardway*

    I’m glad that the OP stepped in to handle this situation. It must have been very difficult to do, but they handled it with appropriate firmness and sensitivity.

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    1. Antilles*

      I’m also glad that Cordelia accepted the decision. I may disagree with her views and still do, but it’s good that she’s no longer pushing them unwillingly on Dawn. Feels like this is about as solid of an outcome as could be reasonably expected.

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    2. DJ Abbott*

      I really appreciate that she hung in there with Cordelia‘s grief. I’ve had more than one manager who couldn’t handle even a relatively normal conversation with emotions. You all would be amazed at how many managers scream and run before they would deal with something like this. Good job, OP! :)

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    3. Artemesia*

      This. Most of us don’t have any management training when our competence gets us promoted into supervisory positions. It is a different set of skills. The OP really stepped up here and did something that is hard to do and did it well.

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  2. Antilles*

    I guess my bosses figured that I would be naturally good at supervising people doing that same work. But I don’t have any previous experience with managing people, and even with just three people, it is really HARD; it doesn’t come naturally to me at all.
    If it makes you feel better, most managers have this exact same experience. It’s simply the way modern workplaces are set up, that the skills which make you promotable TO manager are not the ones which define you when you ARE manager.

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    1. Sara without an H*

      +1. Companies rarely, if ever, provide any training for new managers. That’s one reason why AAM has been running so long!

      And btw, you handled a really painful situation with great tact and sensitivity. Congratulations!

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    3. Baldrick*

      The military has a setup where essentially the EA for a senior General is typically a promising young soldier (sailor, air) so that they can witness how to deal with being a senior leader through observation. They have some responsibility to do admin and other tasks, but that part of their work is straightforward and they get to sit in on many meetings and other situations that allow them to learn how to manage. This happens relatively early so they apply those lessons throughout their career.

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      1. WillowSunstar*

        That sounds much better than many workplaces. I watched the Apple TV Silo show and actually a shadow sounds logical. I wonder why many jobs don’t do that.

        Reply ↓
      2. Reluctant Mezzo*

        This was why Jon Snow being the commander’s steward at the Wall was so important in the Game of Throne series–he was probably going to get promoted anyway and so needed to learn what it looked like to do the job.

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    4. Ally McBeal*

      Yep. My last job, at a decent-sized private university, had a formal leadership training program for employees who were promoted into people-manager positions. It was generally mandatory and fairly effective. At my current job we don’t have any manager training at ALL, and after one disastrous summer when I was given an intern to supervise right after my own manager had quit (and HR was worse than useless), I decided I would not be taking on any people-manager roles at this company. It IS hard and doesn’t always come naturally, and someday C-suite folks will realize that. (No they won’t, plenty of them failed upward into their jobs, but it’s nice to dream.)

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    5. Jamoche*

      The Peter Principle, first described in 1969: “employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.”

      I had a manager once who’d bounced from software dev to software manager and back three times. Third time was not the charm.

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    6. Jules the 3rd*

      Yes, it is hard. I am encouraging my new boss (who has not had mgmt training) to poke at this site. He’s great so far (only 6mo), but some of that is I’m easy to manage – I spent 15 years managing upwards at my last position, trained three managers. If there’s things this boss needs to learn, this is a good site for it.

      LW, kudos. You handled this well. People have feelings, and the best we can do is treat those feelings respectfully but draw boundaries so that those feelings do not harm others. Srsly, kudos.

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  3. Typity*

    OP, sounds like you did everything the right way in a tough situation — many managers never do learn to speak to employees with compassion and respect, particularly when something needs to change.

    Poor Cordelia — she obviously unfairly blames herself for her terrible loss. So she was, from her POV, trying to protect Dawn from a potential tragedy, as opposed to just acting like an anti-vaccine crank. I hope she can find some peace — and that Dawn has a happy healthy baby.

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    1. Heffalump*

      I’d have an impulse to tell Cordelia that her son died in spite of, not because of, being vaccinated, but I realize that she might not be ready to hear it. How sad.

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      1. Elizabeth West*

        I have the same impulse, but it’s not really the manager’s place to do that whether she’s in a state to accept it or not. Regardless of the reason, I’m very sorry she lost her child. I can’t even imagine.

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        1. Momma Bear*

          I’m sorry she lost her child, too, but I’m also glad that OP acknowledged that Dawn’s pregnancy was not the right outlet for that grief.

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      2. K in Boston*

        To be fair, we don’t know the full medical details of what happened to her son, so I don’t know that that would be a kind thing to share unless we were certain that that was the case. I’m pro-vaccination, but I don’t take that stance because vaccines are 100% safe for 100% of people — I take it because they statistically keep people safer than the alternative. Depending on the specific vaccine and what was going on in her son’s body, it could very well be that a vaccine was the root cause of his death, even if indirectly. While adverse events leading to death as a result of standard childhood vaccines are incredibly rare, they are not completely absent from research literature.

        OP definitely needed to have the conversation with Cordelia to not press her vaccine views on others; in an ideal world, Cordelia shouldn’t feel guilty for vaccinating her child when really that was the best decision she could have made with the information she had; and espousing a view that makes it seem like such extreme results are typical is dangerous. All that is true, and I still don’t think we can say for sure that her assessment of what happened to her child was incorrect.

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        1. Miss Chanandler Bong*

          Yeah, I’m in the very rare group of people who has had a reaction to a vaccine. I had a medical exemption for a few vaccines in college. Thankfully we determined the ingredient that caused the reaction, and it’s not present in the flu or Covid vaccines, so I get those annually, but I have to skip a lot of them.

          So I would not say for certain that her baby had a reaction to a vaccine because while rare, it can happen. I also would not be telling someone not to vaccinate their baby because a vaccine reaction is much more rare than these diseases are.

          Now if I had a kid, because of my medical history, I might push for a more spread out vaccine schedule than doctors typically do (part of the reason we think I reacted was I had two shots at a time) and I’d insist on monitoring afterward. But I would not tell someone else to make that decision.

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        2. Tenebrae*

          Yeah, was going to comment this on the original letter. I work in medical history and the unfortunate truth is that vaccines can kill. They’re not not potentially deadly, they’re just vastly, vastly, vastly safer than the alternative in the vast majority of cases.

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        3. Julia K*

          Thank you for your truthful amount of nuance. I’m in the same camp: pro-vaccine because they’re statistically safer for the average person than being unvaccinated, and because they’re helpful to society for the subset of diseases where the vaccines provide sterilizing immunity. But they do cause inflammation, and they can cause a variety of more or less severe side effects and adverse events.

          I tend to get worse vaccine side effects than average. They’re not bad enough to avoid getting vaccinated myself, but they are bad enough to give people the benefit of the doubt when they say they or their children have experienced worse side effects than I have.

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          1. Ace in the Hole*

            I’m strongly pro-vaccine. But the reality is that nothing in life is 100% risk free… vaccines are statistically *much* safer than going unvaccinated, but they do have a tiny sliver of risk to them.

            In a country of 300 million people, even a million-to-one chance will happen to somebody.

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            1. 1-800-BrownCow*

              Absolutely true—nothing in life is 100% risk-free. I have a friend who refuses to wear a seatbelt because 30+ years ago, his cousin died in a car accident while wearing one (black ice, speeding, a curvy road, and wrapping the car around a tree on the driver’s side). Someone told the family that if he hadn’t been buckled in, he might have been ejected and survived. My friend is stuck on that idea, even though countless people have pointed out that ejection was unlikely—and even if it happened, he still could have hit a tree and not survived as it was a heavily wooded area. It’s a tough example of how one tragic incident can shape someone’s perception of risk.

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          2. Kiriana*

            Yeah my sister had a bad reaction to the tetanus vaccine and technically should probably wear a medic alert bracelet for it. We’re both still extremely pro-vax, she’ll just have to talk to her doctor about the TDAP since pertussis is becoming more common here at the moment. (I also realised recently when I went back in my social media archives to check dates that I got covid, and subsequently long covid, only a week after a booster shot. However it’s more likely that I caught it from a large anti-vax protest that was a documented super spreader event that I was having to walk past daily to get to work.)

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        4. Part time lab tech*

          True, that’s one of the reasons both government and anti-vax rhetoric annoy me. One downplays adverse reactions as if they are so rare as to not matter at all and plays up the risks of disease as if getting mumps or chicken pox means you are going to end up in ICU. The other plays up the side effects of vaccines and downplays the risks of the disease as if everyone fully recovers within a week.
          (I am fully aware that this represents an exaggeration of both sides).
          As a child, my sister was told by her allergist not to have the flu vaccine even if she was assured it was safe due to her egg allergy. In her 40’s she worked as a carer and finally gave in to peer pressure and got the vaccine. It reactivated her allergy to the point she probably should’ve carried an EpiPen and it’s taken a decade before she could have cake again without illness.

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        5. JSPA*

          Fewer vaccines are still made in eggs (many, though not all formulations of the flu vaccine still are, but in our childhoods, many were) and egg allergy can be severe enough for something like one in a million people to have anaphylaxis symptoms (though death from that is far rarer). But anaphylaxis happens more quickly (it’s why they normally make you wait on site for a while after getting a vaccination), And to seek medical help if you have systemic allergic symptoms within a few hours (sooner than the timeframe for the expected / normal immune response to the vaccine).

          To complicate things further, in our childhood, certain antibiotics were used in laying chickens at high levels that left traces in eggs, such that people with allergies to those antibiotics could appear to be allergic to eggs.

          This created quite the puzzle.

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          1. The Rural Juror*

            My niece was highly allergic to eggs when she was very little and it affected her vaccination schedule. She’s 8 now and still can’t have scrambled eggs or anything that might be slightly undercooked, though luckily she doesn’t have to watch out for baked goods anymore. I remember when she was finally able to have the flu vaccine and her parents were so glad!

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          2. Freya*

            Was one of those antibiotics penecillin? Because that would totally explain the series of events that led to me having a modified vaccination schedule, which meant I caught measles weeks prior to when I was going to be vaccinated for it (and was very very ill as I was not a well child before that and had no reserves to fight it).

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        6. Anon for this*

          This. It’s just what happens when you live in a country of hundreds of millions, in a world of billions. There are going to be quite a few examples of very, very, very rare occurrences. That doesn’t mean the occurrences are common, it just means the ten million sided die has landed on one occassionally as a result of being rolled hundreds of millions of times. And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t vaccinate, because the odds of dying or getting severe health complications from an illness are much, much higher than rolling a ten million sided die.

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        8. Quill*

          Yeah, there are always extremely rare cases, such as anaphylactic reactions. The sad reality is that it’s better to have 0.0001% of small children die or be injured / sickened by complications than the around 10% that died of vaccine or antibiotics preventable diseases in 1900.

          Telling Cordelia this will not, ultimately, help her at this time. And the only thing OP can do about it is what she already has done: compassionately remind her to respect other people’s medical decisions as she wants them to respect her own, and allow her to grieve.

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      3. CowWhisperer*

        That would be doubly hard for me because my younger brother died of a vaccine-preventable illness before there was a vaccine available.

        My brother died a week before his first birthday of septic shock from an ear infection with a pneumococcal bacteria. Most kids would have been fine – but he was born without a spleen and the spleen acts as a early warning system for pneumococcal bacteria.

        I thought his death was a freak one-off – but apparently people without spleens die of septic shock at a much higher rate and at any age.

        I knew my son had a working spleen – but I also made sure he got Prevnar ASAP. (We did split his 12 month vaccines into a batch of 5 at month 12 and 4 at month 13 – but he was receiving monoclonal antibodies against RSV monthly which took 2 shots per month and his doctor didn’t feel comfortable giving him 7 shots at once so moved two back )

        Reply ↓
        1. Rebecca*

          Our own experiences aren’t necessarily valid to project onto other people. My son has an anaphylatic allergy to penicillin (which is actually more common than such an adverse reaction to common vaccines). But I certainly don’t run around making other parents fearful of antibiotics. That wouldn’t be appropriate. It’s not my place.

          The only correct answer when someone tells you they lost a baby is “what was their name?”. My mother lost a child, and that is her advice. No one ever asks my sister’s name.

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            2. Nikko82*

              nobody thinks you owe them anything. matter of fact, you don’t need to tell anyone you have or don’t have children, just don’t say anything.

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            3. Fluffy Fish*

              im very sorry for your loss.

              i hope you can understand that there is no one thing someone can say or do when made aware someone has children who have passed that will feel good to everyone.

              your experience is valid – but so is Rebecca’s mothers who wants her child to be acknowledged.

              im sure no one thinks you owe anyone anything in regards to your children. you certainly don’t need to answer. grief is so complicated to navigate in society.

              it sounds like for you its painful to discuss, so i hope you don’t ever feel like it’s something you have to bring up or disclose.

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      4. Kella*

        I am extremely pro-vaccine but I’d say there’s a pretty fine line between pushing back on someone’s factual understanding of medical details relevant to them (especially when you yourself do not have all of those details), and pushing someone to do or not do a given medical treatment. So for OP to say that to Cordelia, they’d risk immediately contradicting their own point. If I were Cordelia’s close friend, I would want to find a time and a way to say that but I would never recommend a manager do the same.

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    2. goddessoftransitory*

      I felt so bad for her–blaming herself for something that was in no way her fault (and in no way poisoned her son.) I hate that the media she’s consuming/people she’s with might be pushing this terrible, false narrative.

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    3. RIP Pillowfort*

      I really despise anti-vaccine claims (my mom had everything except diptheria and polio* as a child and my own husband had whooping cough land him in the hospital!) but I feel sympathy for Cordelia as a fellow parent.

      She went through a devistating loss. She wants something to blame in a situation where there may be no blame. That’s a very human reaction even if it’s wrong. I just wish it was a truly fringe sentiment instead of the very dangerous reality we’re in.

      *She was vaccinated for everything that was available in the mid 50’s. She just got really unlucky with whooping cough. Hilariously- no smallpox vaccine scar. They gave it to her twice because they were concerned. Her luck is kind of weird.

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      1. Hroethvitnir*

        Yes. It makes me so sad. Understandable, but so frustrating, to want to blame something concrete. If her child *had* been sensitive to some vaccines, and survived, that’s all the more reason to want those who can to be vaccinated!

        Ultimately, the risk:benefit ratio is extremely in favour of benefit for vaccination on both population and individual levels, but there is no way to change that: yes. Some babies with unknown sensitivities will die. Nothing will ever make that OK if you’re the one losing that child.

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        1. boof*

          Gonna chime in with a bit more nuance:
          The recommended vaccines are recommended /because they have been rigorously studied and found to have an immense risk:benefit ratio/
          I get tired of the misinformation that there’s “no safety data” – there are plenty of vaccines out there that either aren’t recommended or are only recommended in very specific high risk populations because of lack of efficacy or risks. Ie, TB vaccines, dengue fever vaccines, ebola vaccines, rabies vaccines, smallpox vaccines; and so on.
          The ones that are recommended /are recommended for a reason/ and those acting like it’s arbitrary either haven’t bothered to look or are lying for ulterior gain

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          1. pandop*

            Every* schoolchild in the UK was vaccinated against TB with the BCG until the mid-2000s, and it was stopped not because of risks from the vaccine, but because the risk of the disease was no longer such a concern.

            *Within normal parameters, eg a friend of mine reacted so strongly to the pre-test she didn’t need the vaccine.

            I personally have seen what both measles and rubella can do in my own family. They are not diseases to be trifled with.

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            1. Reluctant Mezzo*

              Now there’s TB in Kansas and Ohio (but no word that anybody is bothering with the vaccine there. Not to mention the measles in West Texas and now eastern New Mexico…sigh).

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              1. boof*

                Frankly the TB vaccine isn’t very good compared with, say, measles (like 50% prevention instead of 90% – and it makes screening for TB a little more complicated since you’ll react to some of the common tests, or at least it used to IDK if that’s updated they stopped making me take the skin test here every year) – like I said it’s either about the risks of some vaccines or about the lack of benefit either because the disease isn’t present (ie, smallpox now) or if the vaccine has been reevaluated for effectiveness overall

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          2. goddessoftransitory*

            I have everything but smallpox; my dad, a doctor, decided that particular one wasn’t warranted since it basically has been eliminated in the wild, so to speak, and the vaccine might have more risks than not getting it.

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      2. AnonAnonSir!*

        If anything, it’s a demonstration of how tragically vulnerable certain people can be to anti-vax cults. I really hope Cordelia can get the support she needs!

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      1. knitted feet*

        Well, no, obviously she doesn’t know that. She’s wrong about vaccines, but so are lots of people. Convincing her of that when it’s such an emotional topic for her is not going to be easy, and I don’t think people she works with are the people to do it. (Also, very rarely vaccines can indeed be harmful! They are just statistically far, far less harmful than the diseases they protect against.)

        Reply ↓
      2. Ace in the Hole*

        If she really, genuinely knew that, do you think she would be so viscerally upset about it?

        Her belief isn’t rational, but it sounds genuine.

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    5. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      It doesn’t help that there are people who will ask a grieving mother “what did you do wrong?” and tell her that if she had/hadn’t done X, this wouldn’t have happened. If she hadn’t vaccinated the child, an anti-vaxer would have told her that she ate the wrong thing when she was pregnant, or should have used essential oils, or or or.

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  4. Sam I Am*

    OP, you sound like a compassionate person and a good boss! I’m so glad Alison’s advice worked and everyone was able to remain friendly.

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  6. Turtlewings*

    I’m very pro-vax and very glad OP stepped in — but oh my gosh, poor Cordelia. It breaks my heart to know she thinks she contributed to her baby’s death by trying to protect him from disease, and I can’t imagine her distress at seeing another mother make what she thinks of as the same mistake. Thank you for being so kind to her, OP.

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    1. CityMouse*

      I’m sure she heard horrible things on the internet. My Dad’s a retired pediatrician and fighting misinformed was so hard for him. Watching my Dad talk about Wakefield is one of the few times I’ve seen him incredibly angry.

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      1. Heffalump*

        My father was a chemistry Ph.D., and if he’d lived to see this anti-vax nonsense, I’m sure he’d be extremely annoyed.

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        1. Cedarthea*

          My father was a medicinal chemist Ph.D., and he did see so much of this anti-vax bullshit, and he was very annoyed, so I am sure your father would have been the same.

          The most empathetic take I saw was actually from my grandmother (an RN who was born in 1924 and had TB when she was a young nurse from working in the ward).

          She said, she completely understood why if mothers hadn’t seen the horrors of vaccine preventable illnesses it would seem like madness to inject their perfect little babies, but she had seen that world and that it was really important to vaccinate babies but also it was scary.

          Reply ↓
      2. CowWhisperer*

        My nana survived childhood polio and walked on the sides of her ankles with the soles of her feet facing each others or in heavy duty braces.

        She didn’t suffer fools gladly – and I’m very well versed at explaining how vaccines work, how herd immunity works, and why shots suck less than various diseases in memory of her.

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        1. Grandma*

          My mother-in-law got polio when she was pregnant with my husband a few years before the polio vaccine was available. She missed the first two years of his life, as well as the toddler years for his 2 older siblings, as she moved from an iron lung to multiple spinal surgeries and so much therapy. In the end she ended up losing the use of one arm and had reduced diaphragm function. That made it much harder for her to deal with colds, bronchitis, vomiting, etc. and was ultimately the cause of her death in her early 70s. She was an amazing woman who could do almost everything, but it wasn’t easy. No one in our family or the 4H girls she taught to sew would ever skip vaccines.

          P.S. One of my sibs was the 1 in 1000 adolescent who got encephalitis after having the measles.

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          1. The Rural Juror*

            My great aunt contracted polio as an adult after her 3 children were born (circa 1955). She’s survived but used a wheelchair the rest of life. That was at a time when accessibility was unheard of. She was always frustrated with how many places she couldn’t go in her wheelchair but so happy to be able to watch her children and grandchildren grow up. She talked often about what a blessing it was to vaccinate her kids.

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  7. RCB*

    You handled a tricky situation very well and very compassionately, you should be very proud of yourself and your management style.

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  8. Nice cup of tea*

    Well done for doing the difficult thing. It had to be done. That you found it difficult to upset someone who is grieving just shows that you are a good human.

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  9. MigraineMonth*

    Congratulations on handling a tough situation with grace!

    Remember, OP, that you didn’t *make* Cordelia cry. You brought up an issue that needed to be addressed and were not responsible for her (completely understandable) emotional reaction to it. The same would be true if you needed to address performance or any other issue.

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    1. goddessoftransitory*

      And you handled that reaction with compassion and care, without letting it affect the rest of the team, LW.

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  10. CityMouse*

    The real people at fault here are those horrible social media people and liars who caused this mother to wrongly attribute her child’s death.

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    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      One of the first things you learn in statistics is that correlation does not imply causation.

      More people need to study statistics.

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      1. Kimmitt*

        The old joke about that is “I used to think that correlation implied causation, but then I took a statistics class, so now I’m not so sure.”

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      2. goddessoftransitory*

        One of the reasons the Connie Willis novel Bellwether is one of my favorite books is that the lead character is a statistician and uses her knowledge to understand the events that take place. She’s surrounded by other scientists that are much more “trendy.”

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    2. Kimmitt*

      There are a small number of infants and children who do have bad reactions to vaccines. This number is of course a tiny tiny fraction of the infants who are protected from death and misery by the vaccines’ wide adoption. There is a Federal system to support and compensate those unlucky few for this reason.

      Anyways.

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      1. CityMouse*

        My Dad’s a retired pediatrician with a fellowship in neurodevelopmental issues from a top program. So when it came to my own kid I had an absolute expert advising me. And my kid is fully vaxxed.

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    3. HiddenT*

      Yeah. Grief makes people vulnerable, especially when the cause of death wasn’t clear, making them search for something or someone to blame. It’s very sad that she feels like it’s her fault for doing someone that protects 99% of children from serious illnesses.

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    4. Emily Byrd Starr*

      Social media is the worst thing to happen to humanity, in my opinion, and if everyone and their uncle deleted their accounts today, it would be a better world.

      Reply ↓
      3. HiddenT*

        Strongly disagree. Unmoderated social media that’s driven by capitalist greed is the problem.

        When Haiti was hit with the devastating earthquake in 2010, social media was crucial for keeping lines of communication open when most of the traditional methods had been destroyed or severely limited.

        Social media doesn’t make people evil. The companies running it just learned that feeding the outrage machines make them more money.

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        2. Starbuck*

          Yeah; it’s especially easy to see this when you look at the shift in the past 15 years or so from more decentralized, community run niche focused forums etc to today’s handful of massive, algorithmically driven scroll feeds. A totally different beast.

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        3. MM*

          See also the Arab uprisings of 2011 and beyond. It wasn’t solely driven by social media, as many breathlessly claimed at the time, but social media did play an important role.

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        4. Kiriana*

          I joined social media in the wake of earthquakes in my own country. Various platforms have been used for both incredibly fantastic and incredibly horrific things, and for me personally it’s a lifeline now that I’m sick and stuck at home most of the time. It’s basically the only way I have to talk to people outside my family.

          Reply ↓
      4. Dahlia*

        Without social media, I, a disabled queer person in a small rural area, would be very lonely and not have any kind of community.

        Reply ↓
      5. Meow*

        Without social media, I, brown queer child from a highly abusive family that did everything they could to isolate me from the world, would be dead before I were 15.

        Reply ↓
      6. Beth*

        Without the social media of two decades ago, I would never have met my wife, who is the single best thing ever to happen in my life. I might still be alive, but I would be much, much worse off.

        Reply ↓
      7. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Bear in mind that this site has comments section which is technically social media.

        ( ::waves :: at people she’d love to meet for coffee in real life )

        Reply ↓
      8. Lenora Rose*

        I will happily admit I preferred the heyday of Livejournal (pre-Russian buyout) and similar, where brevity was less prized and attention spans were necessarily longer. And I even have good to say about less algorithmically driven social media days with fewer ads throughout, and before Facebook had such a big hissy fit about allowing news sites in Canada.

        But social media also made it easier to confirm my brother was well through a hurricane, and has been an essential connecting place during any number of natural disasters. I think it needs more regulations – if more countries had the same laws as Canada, we couldn’t be isolated from the news – but not necessarily that it should be banned.

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    5. RCB*

      While I don’t disagree with your point, I was always curious if I missed it anywhere (maybe the OP commented later somewhere?) or do we know for sure that the vaccine caused the death or does Cordelia assume it did? It’s entirely possible that we know for sure that the vaccine caused the death (allergic reaction, the needle poked the wrong thing, etc.), which I think changes how we view Cordelia’s behavior just a little bit, than if it’s not certain that it caused the death but she thinks it did and has made it the boogeyman for the death of her child. I think that if we know for certain that a vaccine caused the death of her child, then we forgive a little more of the behavior – to a very limited point- viewing it as a please allow me as a parent to alert you to a real life possibility so that you are at least aware, vs I am trauma dumping on you and going to call your parenting into question every time I can and harass you. It does sound like she’s definitely doing the second one, and that’s absolutely not okay, but maybe if she were able to tone it back to a one-time “May I tell you about this issue that happened with my infant child so that I can share my knowledge new mother to new mother?” consentual conversation then sure.

      I really don’t know where I’m going with all of this, I guess I’m mainly interested if it was ever firmly settled in the canon that the baby did die because of the vaccine (or getting the shot), or if that is just what Cordelia suspects to be the cause? From there how I view the situation slightly changes.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hlao-roo*

        do we know for sure that the vaccine caused the death or does Cordelia assume it did?

        The original letter says:

        About 10 years ago (before I worked here), Cordelia had a baby who tragically passed away before his first birthday. His death was about a week after he had received several of the usual six-month infant vaccines. Cordelia has blamed his death on the vaccines and is an anti-vaxxer.

        We know that Cordelia blames her son’s death on vaccines. We (and the letter-writer) don’t know if the vaccines did cause the death or if the death just happened to occur around the same time that he got the vaccines.

        Reply ↓
        1. Dog momma*

          That’s correct. we also don’t know if the baby had any co-morbidities ( diagnosed or not) that either contributed to, or were the actual cause of death. all we know is baby died shortly after vaccines were given& baby’s mom blames the vaccines for baby’s death.

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  12. Elder Millenial*

    OP, you did a great job at handling both employees and being supportive but firm. I think you managed this situation well! A lot of managers would not have intervened or even noticed, so you were right to say something to both Cordelia and Dawn. I’m guessing Dawn felt awkward and didn’t know how to respond to Cordelia’s advice. She probably felt relieved that you addressed it for her.

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  13. TokenJockNerd*

    This is the best possible outcome, I think.

    My heart hurts for Cordelia’s loss, and I’m glad you were able to let her leave early. And I’m glad she was able to accept “we can’t do this at work”. I hope she can come to accept that her loss wasn’t her fault, or vaccines’ fault, in time. What a weight to carry, but not your place to solve.

    Reply ↓
  15. SimonTheGreyWarden*

    My situation has some similarities to Cordelia’s, though luckily without the devastating loss. Not long after receiving his first vaccinations (within weeks, I think), my son had a seizure. There was no family history of seizures or anything. It was very easy for me to wonder what I did to “cause it.” What could I have done differently.

    My son is older now, and he is epileptic – the seizure was not a one-off thing. We don’t know why. Genetic testing revealed nothing so we probably never will. But it isn’t anything I’ve done or not done. It’s safe for him to be vaccinated – no allergies – so he gets his flu shot etc every year.

    My heart hurts for Cordelia, of course.

    OP managed this with sensitivity and gentleness, but still protected Dawn.

    Reply ↓
      1. Harriet's Begonias*

        Not to be super pedantic, but I think you might mean ‘idiopathic’ (doctor-ese for “we just don’t know”) rather than ‘iatrogenic’ (i.e. “definitely caused by a medical treatment”)?

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  16. Strive to Excel*

    Adding on to the chorus – OP, you did a top-tier job in managing a very painful conversation. Your framing was very good and you did an incredible job in shutting the conversation down. I’ll keep this update as a note on what to do if I ever end up in your shoes.

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  17. porridge fan*

    I’m pro-vax, would be delighted if everyone who could would get their vaccinations, and am very comfortable explaining how they work to anyone who is open to hearing it.

    But I’m glad that OP didn’t bring any of that to this conversation. This scenario is not about whether vaccines are safe or effective, it’s about letting people make their own decisions and about keeping the workplace a comfortable place for everyone. Well done, OP!

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  18. Abogado Avocado*

    OP, thanks for this update. Until I read this, I didn’t know I could feel sympathy for Cordelia, but I do, even though I believe in vaccination. You really are a terrific manager. And I so appreciate you sharing the results of your management!

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  19. Esprit de l'escalier*

    In addition to OP’s excellently done intervention with Cordelia and follow-up with Dawn, I am struck by what a good writer OP is. OP, I really enjoyed your turns of phrase and descriptions. Well done all around!

    Reply ↓
  20. OldTiredRN*

    I don’t know how many people here are my age but I had measles, mumps, chicken pox, whopping cough and they were all terrible. I’d have gladly skipped any or all of them. I still have scars. Kids in the class ahead of mine had polio survivors. Vaccination is a modern triumph. How, when and how many at a time is a discussion for parents and pediatricians but we’ll never know how many lives saved and how much disability prevented.

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    1. goddessoftransitory*

      Mitch McConnell came close to doing something when he was raging about anti-vaxxers; he HAD polio and barely survived.

      Reply ↓
    2. London Calling*

      We must be around the same age – I also had all those and would happily have traded the suffering for shots to prevent them (although the day polio vax was replaced with vaccine on sugar lumps I rejoiced – over 60 years later I can still recall the pain of my polio shot). Two schoolfriends died of childhood diseases. My mother made sure we had all our vaccines and I was there with my sleeve rolled up the last few years for covid shots, the boosters, flu, shingles and pneumonia.

      “Vaccination is a modern triumph” – amen to that.

      Reply ↓
      1. Strive to Excel*

        Some of those needles SUUUUUCK. My biggest barrier towards getting my flu shot each year is a deep and abiding fear of needles, and those aren’t even that bad.

        But I’m grateful that all I have to seriously worry about is a couple of minor or not-so-minor pinpricks. So much better than polio or anything covered by TDAP.

        Reply ↓
        1. Bird names*

          If you haven’t tried it, you might suggest using something like shotblocker (small pad wie uneven surface) to your doctor during vaccination. The surface has only blunt points, but “confuses” skin perception around the injection site to minimize pain.

          Reply ↓
        2. London Calling*

          I have a blood condition that means blood is taken every 12 weeks or so in order for the oncologist to check that my platelet levels are as they should be. I’m pretty nonchalant about needles as a result. I still don’t watch as the phlebotomist takes it, though.

          And the shingles booster left me with a slightly sore arm and a bruise. I’ll take that over shingles ANY day.

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        3. Dog momma*

          Strive, you think those are baf, try getting the Hep B panel. I needed it for work back in the 80s. Really hurts for multiple day. and its a 3 dose series. I wanted to pull my arm off and attach A new one…

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    3. Seashell*

      I had chicken pox, and that was unpleasant enough. Glad my kids never had to have it. My mom told me about having the mumps when she was a kid and things being shut down due to polio outbreaks.

      In his book Never Have Your Dog Stuffed And Other Things I’ve Learned, Alan Alda talks about his experience of having polio as a child, among other stories, and it’s pretty compelling for those of us who aren’t old enough to remember life before the polio vaccine.

      Reply ↓
      1. Frieda*

        My grandfather had a stroke that prematurely ended his career (in public health, ironically) and then another that killed him a decade later.

        Now we know that having shingles in your eyes, which he did – in addition to being painful – is associated with a significantly higher risk of stroke.

        I had chicken pox the old-fashioned way but you better believe I’m getting a shingles vaccination when I’m eligible, and my kids are vaxxed for chicken pox. I strongly encourage anyone who had chicken pox to talk with their doctor about the shingles vaccination. (I’m not a doctor and am not giving medical advice.)

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        2. Parakeet*

          I had shingles when I was 31 – so, much younger than when people are normally considered candidates for the vaccines – and yeah, if you can get vaxxed for it, I recommend that, because it’s no fun. My younger sister also got it in her early 30s, so maybe there’s some kind of genetic predisposition to early shingles in our family.

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          1. Polaris*

            I feel like a lot of people get it younger than they vax for.

            Signed in “had it twice before I was 30” and it SUCKED.

            Reply ↓
        1. amoeba*

          Measles specifically can have pretty devastating long-term complications, as in deadly years after the original infection. That shit is scary.

          Reply ↓
    4. Irish Teacher.*

      I think part of the issue is that us younger Gen Xs and Millennials had chicken pox and mumps and possibly rubella but avoided things like measles and polio and smallpox and whooping cough and for many of us, the illnesses we did get were unpleasant but reasonably mild, so I think some people of my generation sort of think that vaccination is “just to avoid feeling sick for a few days” and don’t realise how severe some of the illnesses we were vaccinated against were.

      So people are susceptible to “we don’t know what’s in the vaccines!!” or reports of worst case scenarios where children had terrible reactions that seem like way bigger threats than chicken pox or mumps. But of course, those aren’t the only things children are vaccinated against and even those can be serious in certain circumstances or can lead to later problems like shingles after chicken pox.

      But we didn’t grow up seeing classmates die or being hospitalised for illnesses so it’s easier to shrug them off and to forget that the reason we COULD do that was because there were already vaccines for many of the worst illnesses.

      Reply ↓
      1. tangerineRose*

        That makes sense. I’m in Gen X, so my parents knew people who had polio, some who died from it. Maybe that feels too far away for many people. But flu or measles, etc. can have really bad effects.

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  21. Y'all are ableist as hell, man.*

    I’m sorry, but at this point, anti-vaxxers deserve no quarter. It’s a deep tragedy that Cordelia lost her child, and a sin and a shame that she was taken advantage of in her grief by grifters and liars, but she is now *actively causing harm* to the people around her. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, and now we’re on the cusp of multiple new epidemics, including measles, at a time when the HHC secretary is a man who, and I cannot stress this enough, is already responsible for a measles epidemic in Samoa. Cordelia is engaging in dangerously antisocial behaviors, and should have been fired, just as if she’d punched Dawn in the nose.

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    1. Totally Minnie*

      Cordelia didn’t make those decisions in a vacuum. She’s been manipulated by the media to believe the things she believes. Her beliefs are wrong, but nobody ever changes their mind because someone calls them stupid and tells them to F off. At this point, there’s probably a considerable portion of the population that would need therapy with someone trained in cult deprogramming in order to stop believing dangerous things, but we can’t enforce that on people, all we can do is what’s within our own reach.

      The LW has consistently done the responsible thing with Cordelia by not allowing her to spread her antivax beliefs in the office. Limiting the reach of people with dangerous beliefs is a good thing, and I’m proud of LW for doing that.

      Reply ↓
      1. 653-CXK*

        Well said.

        When this pandemic started, my beliefs were that this was a bad cold and it would resolve within a few weeks. Five years later, I’ve had COVID twice (2021 and 2024) and I can tell you with sincerity that it is not merely a bad cold, but the vaccines tempered it to where I survived both instances. My job requires me to have a vaccine (both flu and COVID) so I don’t infect vulnerable seniors.

        OP did the right thing by gently showing Cordelia the error of her ways. She did it respectfully and framed it as a “what would you do” situation, rather than attempting to shame, shun or embarrass her (as she’s already dealt with a death of her baby).

        Firing Cordelia would not have been justified – in fact, it would have been cruel and not taught a lesson to anyone still against (or at best on the fence with) vaccines. On the other hand, if Cordelia had gotten more obnoxious with her pleas, that’s something OP must escalate with HR – and then it’s up to HR to take action.

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      2. peony*

        Also, Cordelia lost a child and 10-plus years later, still believes that it was her fault. So for OP to choose that particular moment to try and push back against Cordelia’s guilt/grief spiral with a, “WeLl aKShuALLY” about the safety of vaccines would have been:
        1) breathtakingly callous on a human level
        2) wildly inappropriate for a manager to say to a report, especially given that power dynamic–hello HR!
        3) very counterproductive and made Cordelia dig her heels in even more on both her anti-vaccine stance AND her belief that she “killed” her baby
        3b) probably sent her off the deep end with regards to the latter, in terms of needing emergency inpatient psychiatric help

        Also, Cordelia shouldn’t blame herself! Let me make that very clear! But losing a child is a particular kind of hell and grief already messes with your head. This kind of grief is something that some people just never really come back from and Cordelia may be one of those people, unfortunately. This may be as “good” as she’ll ever be, in terms of “dealing” with it :-(

        This may be the best outcome that the LW can hope for at this point. Yes, RFK, Jr. is kind of the worst right now, yes he will be directly responsible for a lot of needless deaths in the coming years, yes his parents, his aunt Jackie, and Uncle Jack, are rolling over in their graves right now, etc. (and probably his uncle Teddy too). But that is not really on the LW to solve right now at her workplace. And TBH, Dawn is an adult with a brain and access to libraries, medical journals, and her own pediatrician and ob-gyn too. If she hasn’t figured out by now that she should consider discussing vaccine schedules and safety with her own baby doctor, instead of her non-qualified coworkers (especially one with Cordelia’s particular circumstances), then that is kind of on her.

        I am very much pro-vaccine for anyone who can get them (obviously, immuno-compromised people are a different story), but I also have close relatives who lost their babies in “here one day, gone the next” shock. And that just really is its own type of grief that rewires your brain, even years later–especially the feeling of “did I do anything to cause this” (even when the parent absolutely did not do anything to cause their child’s death). And like others have mentioned, something akin to cult deprogramming would be needed to make someone stop having *that* mindset or that level of “I can’t really move on” grief. And to be honest, I’m not sure that kind of “deprogramming” exists for this type of grief/mindset, at least not when it’s this stuck in.

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    2. Palmer*

      Antivax is harm.

      America likes to be an ‘arena of ideas’, but some ideas are legitimately violent, dangerous and should not be repeated.

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    3. Elf*

      The approach used helped Cordelia see things from another point of view, and, most importantly, got her to stop pushing her anti-vax position on others in the workplace (and hopefully elsewhere, too).

      Firing her without warning would have made her a martyr for the cause, not stopped her at all, and possibly reinforced her and others in their views.

      Similar principal to how, despite it seems largely sharing your views and being someone who has to limit activities because of my suppressed immune system and autoimmune disease, my hackles were raised by the comment that we’re all ‘ablest as hell’

      Reply ↓
      1. 653-CXK*

        I said as much in my reply to Totally Minnie (although I said it would have been cruel, but being a martyr to the cause would have also applied).

        Where many of the comments on this issue (still touchy lo these five years) were positive and encouraging because it yielded positive results, “Y’all ableist as hell, man” comes off as hostile and rude.

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        1. peony*

          yeah, the “yall ableist as hell” rubbed me the wrong way too. Sometimes I think people just throw words around without considering that they actually have meaning (“gaslighting” is another one that got watered down to the point that when someone uses it now, I kind of assume there’s a 95 percent chance that no real gaslighting is going on). “Ableist” is fast joining that category.

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    4. Ellis Bell*

      So, … make the grieving mother under OP’s power the lightning rod for social ire against the HHC secretary? I agree with you that any continuance of anti vaxxing nonsense deserves zero tolerance, but if we can clear the forward path without giving in to breathtaking human callousness and anger, we should. OP did.

      Reply ↓
    5. Allegra*

      As someone with a disability who doesn’t get out much anymore, and with a lot of disabled friends that are housebound because of the public’s disregard for masking and vaccines–I get the desire. I know it’s cathartic to imagine this kind of power fantasy, of punishing people that spread harmful rhetoric because we’re in a position where we can Do Something To Them.

      But most people spouting these kinds of views, and Cordelia in particular I bet, have been lied to about the things they’re most afraid of when they’re most vulnerable to believing those lies. And the news media they rely on are spreading a specific POV for money, and our schools have been under attack for twenty years so they didn’t learn how to critically analyze the things they’re hearing. The way we reach these people is not with punishment and vitriol, because they’re already being fed a narrative that they are victims and maligned and that just makes them believe that harder. We reach them by meeting them where they are, acknowledging their fears, and giving them a reason to trust reality again. (And when I say “we” I mean people able to meet them on that axis; I’m not saying every marginalized person needs to be the bigger person to someone who’s directly harming them, just talking about a general principle. I would not be able to have these gracious conversations, as a Jew, with the people who call in bomb threats to synagogues, but I could have them with anti-vaxxers on that axis.)

      I was really blown away by OP’s recounting of the conversation with Cordelia. It acknowledged her pain and her fears but reinforced Dawn’s needs, which in the end has stopped anti-vax misinfo from being spread in the workplace. And Cordelia will remember that people who disagreed with her on this still treated her respectfully and kindly, which is the most important thing in helping people get out of these circles. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong when the response will be “of course, you monster, you should be ashamed of yourself.” It’s much easier to admit you were wrong when the response is “I understand why you did, and it hurt me, but I’m glad you understand that now, too.” It is extremely hard and it does not happen overnight. But we really have to be like OP here and step up and try.

      Reply ↓
    6. CantBelieveIt*

      You do realize that there are legitimate adverse reactions and deaths linked to vaccines right? The government even created an entire system to track them called VAERS.

      Now, the individual risk of being affected by them is vanishingly small and well outweighed by the individual and public health benefits, but still, it isn’t zero.

      This is the behavior that turns a lot of people off from public health. The “holier than though” attitude with no care about the psychological impact.

      Reply ↓
  22. tenor eleven*

    “At this point, there were less than 30 minutes left in the workday, and I asked if she wanted to go ahead and leave a little bit early.”

    OP, you have natural management instincts that no one can teach. You’re doing a great job.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      This part really touched me. What a great manager! (Because honestly, what is this person, in this emotional state, going to be able to accomplish in that 30 minutes? But many of us have, unfortunately, worked for people who would have insisted that we sit there and weep until the going-home bell rings. And also do all the things while we weep.)

      Capitalism sucks.

      Reply ↓
  23. Kate*

    OP, it sounds like you handled this so professionally and thoughtfully! Circling back to Dawn was a great idea and you brought it up in such a perfectly tactful way where she was able to be the one to bring up the extent to which Cordelia’s behavior was a problem, not you. Bravo!

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  25. Observer*

    LW, thanks for stepping up. It’s a good thing that you needed a couple of minutes when you were done with Cordelia. Because while these conversations are absolutely necessary, decent people do not like making others cry, even when it was *absolutely* necessary. That’s not only being a good person, it’s being a good and *effective* boss.

    Also, kudos for going to Dawn about it. It’s good that she knows explicitly that you have her back on this. But also, her reaction says that she really was feeling pressured and uncomfortable. So she immediately understood the connection between “If you ever feel pressured, let me know because that’s not ok” and “Cordelia apparently got a talking to.”

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    1. Slayerette*

      Except I wish they had named “Cordelia” Anya or Harmony instead. Cordelia Chase didn’t suffer the indignity of season 4 to be labeled the pushy anti-vaxxer -_-

      Reply ↓
  28. MamaSarah*

    Dear LW,
    Just curious what field you are in and if you have any upcoming vacancies? Pretty sure I’d love to work for you!
    Vaccinations, pregnancy, death and loss can be such challenging topics in the work place – sounds like you handle this situation with diplomacy and grace. Well done.
    I wish you and your team the very best. ❤️

    Reply ↓
  29. Jargon*

    #1. I knew what Alison’s advice would be and it is probably the ideal response, however it does seem go against the norm for this one particular industry. I regularly work with church, they are my main clients, and it is still very much the norm for minister’s spouses to be employed by the church. The usual exception being if the spouse had professional career prior to their spouse transitioning to ministry later in life. While not as common this often also includes male partners of female ministers.

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  30. NotARealManager*

    OP, you did such a great job!

    I feel so bad for Cordelia that she lost a child and that she now has antivax views. A decade ago I was mad at run of the mill antivaxxers, but now I’m angrier at the grifters that capitalize on grieving/insecure/new/otherwise vulnerable parents. The grifters know what they’re doing and it’s despicable. Whether vaccines really contributed to her son’s death or not, she was probably targeted by these grifters in the worst moments of her life and it led her to the views she holds today.

    Reply ↓
  31. Music Staff*

    As a church music director I have to chime in here. Depending on the area, the minister’s partner may very well be the only choice.

    I understand the issues of hiring a partner, and agree it isn’t ideal in any way. But! Church music is its own animal. There aren’t a lot of people who want to give up being able to travel over Christmas and Easter, and half of every weekend.

    My first job is a public school music teacher, but as a second job, I’ve been a church choir director and pianist/organist for 35 years.
    I’m getting ready to retire and there really isn’t anyone in my semi-rural area who is interested or willing.

    Reply ↓

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